


in this shirt i can be you (to be near you for a while)

by commonemergency



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 03:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15476517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: Dan never knows how this will go. He’s been jumping timelines for so long it’s all starting to blur.or Dan is a time traveler looking for 'the one' and finds someone else instead.





	in this shirt i can be you (to be near you for a while)

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this idea for _so_ long and it's always been just one of those ideas that i've been too scared to write until now.
> 
> basically: this is an alternate time travel / 'soulmate' trope smashed into one to make this subvert. 
> 
> title is from [in this shirt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1XhabUawmU) by the irrepressibles it really sets the tone for the fic.

Dan never knows how this will go. He’s been jumping timelines for so long it’s all starting to blur. He’s lived incredible lives and seen some amazing things but sometimes he appreciates a mundane timeline. When things are slow, when he’s a coffee shop barista, or an office worker, or a baker. The problem is, he’s still looking for the person that he’s always been looking for. 

He swears he’s bumped into them before. Probably in every single life that he’s lived but has never said anything because he doesn’t _know_. It’s not like there’s this feeling he gets, like he knows that they’re _the one_. There’s no tug or pull, no mark or sign. It’s just how it always is in every other world. 

There’s no real guideline or book and how to do this, he’s never understood how he jumps it’s just he goes to sleep and he wakes up and he’s just Dan who looks the same, but at the same time someone else with an entirely different life. He doesn’t know if there’s a world out there where it isn’t like this. Maybe everyone is just jumping around timelines like it’s a completely normal thing or maybe there’s a place where none of this exists. It’s just. _Dan is tired._

And when he wakes up, he’s in Manchester, England. 

He’s been here before, he was on the football team, and he could have sworn that one of the men on the team were ‘ _the one_ ’ but he never said anything and after a championship he was gone and so was the man, he never showed up again. He thinks that it must have spent a couple of years in that universe, all the way from the start of his football career to the good ending of it. 

(He didn’t always have good endings.) 

Manchester is different, not by a whole lot, but it’s a noticeable difference. The Manchester Wheel was gone last time he came here but he must have gone back in time. He didn’t really have an emotional connection to it other than the fact that a lot of other people did. There was something grounding about the people around him who connected to things like that. Dan knows that there would eventually come a time when they will know what would happen in the future, they just get the privilege to live in it in the _now_ while it was still happening. 

Dan thinks he must be around twenty-one given the length of his hair. He’s at a club with a fruity drink in his hand and Some Nights is playing followed by We Are Never Getting Back Together, both versions remixed to fit the club atmosphere and the bouncing neon lights. 

Someone slams their drink down next to him, he looks to the noise and sees someone with black hair and really glossed over blue eyes. Dan takes another drink of his fruity cocktail before nodding to the other. They’re not saying anything and Dan wonders if by some chance he’s the one that he’s looking for. 

“It’s too hot in here,” The person says, mainly to themselves but it was loud enough for Dan to hear and chime in if he wanted to. 

He _definitely_ wanted to. 

“Clubs normally are just a space of heat, alcohol and smoke.” Dan says with a small laugh, looking in the others eyes like he’s trying to find something but nothing is really there other than a look of maybe confusion. 

“I just came because my friend was going through a tough time and wanted to go out. I wish I hadn’t.” The other says back, messing with his fringe a bit. 

Dan nods. “Well, you’re a good friend--” He says, waiting for the guy to say his name. 

“Oh.Yeah. I’m Phil.” The other says, waving a hand as if to say ‘hello’. 

“I’m Dan,” He says, finishing the last of the drink before looking back at Phil. 

“So what do you do?” Phil asks, they’ve moved towards the back by the long line to the loo. He can hear him a lot better here. 

“Official title is Alternate Timeline Traveler.” Dan says with a smirk. He doesn’t know if it’s dangerous, but at this point, he doesn’t care. If anything bad were to happen it would have happened already, that was his motto most of the time. “I like to call myself a Jumper though, like that one movie in 2008. Although the movie may be more complicated than what I actually do.” 

Phil just looks at him like he’s waiting for the punchline but it doesn’t come. What surprises Dan most is the fact that Phil just laughs and then shrugs. It’s not the kind of ‘making fun of you laugh’, it’s just like, _oh right, this is completely normal._

“Okay. So Jumper, what do you do right now?” 

The question throws him off a little. Deep down he knows that Phil doesn’t actually believe him, but it’s nice to pretend that someone is trying to understand. 

“I think I’m a student. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a job. That’s all I know right now.” Dan sighs because most of the time, everything was a shot in the dark. 

Phil nods, like he’s taking it into consideration, mulling over the information. “How does it work?” 

Dan shrugs. “I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out.” 

“Has it always been like this for you?” Phil asks more questions, it’s like he has a list of them, and with each question it just gives Dan hope that maybe, _just maybe_ , this is it. 

“Yeah, ever since I could remember.” Dan chews on his nails, a habit that’s followed him in every timeline which is, admittedly, comforting. 

Phil smiles a little. “What was your favourite place to go?” 

Well, that was easy. 

“Japan.” Dan smiles, remembering how he had arrived just in time for the cherry blossoms. He wasn’t there for very long, but long enough to know that he’d like to go back sometime. 

“So what are you looking for?” Phil asks next. 

Dan goes silent. Someone bumps into him and Dan briefly makes eye contact with the person before he turns his attention back to Phil. 

“I don’t know yet.” Dan says instead, eyeing Phil. 

Dan wants to say: _you._

*

When Dan wakes up it’s to the sound of a car alarm. It’s still dark out and Phil is laying next to him clutching his green pillow. Dan turns to look at him, searching for answers that he knows that he won’t find, scared that when he closes his eyes and wakes up again he’ll be somebody else in a different life. 

He’s never gotten attached to people before, and he knows that this isn’t any different from anyone else in the lives that he’s lived, but the thing is? He wants it to be. 

He hates that he has hope that he could be. 

Phil’s eyes open, and he finds Dan staring, and he laughs despite how sleepy he sounds. 

“Time travelers don’t sleep?” Phil asks, his voice is distant and groggy. 

“We do.” Dan says with a small smile, reaching out to tug on Phil’s fringe. 

_I’m just afraid to_ , he thinks. 

*

When he wakes up again, he’s in London.  
When he wakes up again, he’s older by six years. 

It wasn’t him. 

But he wanted it to be.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> talk to me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**
> 
> [reblog](http://nihilismdan.tumblr.com/post/176402813418/in-this-shirt-i-can-be-you-to-be-near-you-for-a) on tumblr.


End file.
